The seating plan showed my own place between an actor and a clergyman, both professions to strike the right archetypal note for an evening of that sort. The actor (who had performed a rather notable Shallow the previous year) was now playing in an Ibsen revival, of which Polly Duport was the star. The clergyman’s name — the Revd Canon Paul Fenneau — familiar, was not immediately placeable. A likely guess would be that he was incumbent of a London parish, a parson known for active work in some charitable sphere, possibly even the preservation of ancient buildings. Celebrity in such fields could have brought him to the dinner that night. The last possibility might also explain the faintly scholarly associations, not necessarily theological, that the name set in motion.
A crowd of guests was already collected by the bar in the gallery beyond the circular central hall. Members was there, talking to Smethyck (recently retired from the directorship of his gallery), both of them, Members especially, giving the impression that they intended to make a mildly uproarious evening of it. The flushed cheeks of Members enclosed by fluffy white hair and thick whiskers, contrasted with Smethyck’s longer thinner whiskers, and elegantly shaped grey corkscrew curls, increased the prevailing atmosphere of Victorian jollification. Both were wearing white ties, an order round the neck. I had not seen Members since the Magnus Donners dinner, nor should we meet in future in that connexion, the panel of judges having been reconstituted. He was still taking immense pleasure in the scenes there enacted.
‘I’ve been telling Michael about the Quiggin twins. Do you know he had never heard of them? What do you think of that for an Ivory Tower?’
Smethyck smoothed his curls and smiled, gratified at the implications of existing in gloriously rarefied atmosphere.
‘True, I live entirely out of the world these days, Mark. How should I know of such things as stinkbombs?’
‘I may have done some indiscreet things in my time,’ said Members. ‘I’ve never fathered any children. That’s notwithstanding a few false alarms. Poor old JG. The great apostle of revolt in the days of our youth. Do you remember Sillers calling him our young Marat? Marat never had to bring up twins. What a couple.
Dids’t thou give all to thy daughters?
And art thou come to this?
It won’t be long before JG’s out on Hampstead Heath asking that of passers-by.’
Smethyck pedantically demurred, thereby somewhat impugning his claim to know nothing of contemporary life.
‘In Lear’s case it was the father seeking an alternative society. The girls supported the Establishment. They’re my favourite heroines in literature, as a matter of fact.’
Members accepted correction.
‘Lindsay Bagshaw told me the other day that he regarded himself as a satisfied Lear. Since his wife died, he divides his time between his daughters’ households, and says their food is not at all bad.’
‘Your friend Bagshaw must be temperamentally equipped to accept the compromises that Lear rejected,’ said Smethyck. ‘I do not know him — ’
He had evidently heard as much as he wanted about the Magnus Donners dinner, and moved away to speak with a well-known cartoonist. Members continued to brood on the Quiggin twins and their activities.
‘Do you think Widmerpool arranged it all, to get his own back on Gwinnett?’
‘Widmerpool was as surprised as anyone when the bang went off.’
‘That’s what’s being generally said. I wondered whether it was true. He’s here tonight.’
‘Widmerpool?’
‘Looking even scruffier than at the Magnus Donners. What does it all mean dressing like that? Do you think he will make another speech off the cuff?’
Members, speaking as one in a position to deplore slovenliness of dress, fingered the cross at his throat. A life peeress, also connected with the world of culture, passed at that moment, and he buttonholed her. A moment later Widmerpool came into sight at the far end of the gallery. He was prowling about by himself, speaking to no one. Members had called him scruffy, but his disarray, such as it was, did not greatly differ from that of the Magnus Donners evening. He was still wearing the old suit and red polo jumper, though closer contact might have revealed the last as unwashed since the earlier occasion. Widmerpool’s appearance afforded an example of the curiously absorbent nature of the RA party. At almost any other public dinner the getup would have looked out of place. Here, clothes and all, he was unified with fellow guests. “Those who did not know him already might easily have supposed they saw before them a professional painter, old and seedy — Widmerpool looked decidedly more than his later sixties — who had emerged momentarily, from some dilapidated artists’ colony, to make an annual appearance at a function to which countless years as an obscure contributor had earned him the prescriptive right of invitation. In this semi-disguise, seen at long range, he could be pictured pottering about with an easel, in front of a row of tumbledown whimsically painted shacks lying along the seashore. Widmerpool moved out of sight. I did not see him again until we went into dinner, when he reappeared sitting a short way up the table on the other side from my own.
The clergyman, Canon Fenneau, was already engaged in conversation with the Regius Professor on his left, when I sat down. The actor and I talked. I had not seen the Ibsen production in which he was playing, but I told him that I had met Polly Duport, and knew Norman Chandler, who had directed a play in which my neighbour had acted not long before. Talk about the Theatre took us through the first course. The actor spoke of Molnar, a dramatist known to me from reading, on the whole, rather than seeing on a stage.
‘Molnar must be about due for a revival.’
The actor agreed.
‘Somebody was saying that the other day. Who was it? I know. It was after the performance last week. Polly Duport’s friend with the French name. He’s a writer of some sort, I believe. He thought Molnar an undervalued playwright in this country. What is he called? I’ve met him once or twice, when he’s come to pick her up.’
‘I wouldn’t know. I don’t know her at all well.’
‘A French name. De-la-something. Delavacquerie? Could it be that?’
‘There’s a poet called Gibson Delavacquerie.’
‘That’s the chap. I remember Polly calling him Gibson. Small and dark. They’re two of the nicest people.’
I heard no more about this revelation — it graded as a revelation — because someone on the far side of the table distracted the actor’s attention by saying how much he had enjoyed the Ibsen. Almost simultaneously a voice from my other flank, soft, carefully articulated, almost wheedling, spoke gently.
‘We met a long time ago. You will not remember me. I’m Paul Fenneau.’
Smooth, plump, grey curls (rather like Smethyck’s, in neat waves), pink cheeks, Canon Fenneau stretched out a hand below the level of the table. It seemed rather unnecessary to shake hands at this late juncture, but I took it. The palm surprised by its firm even rough surface, electric vibrations. I had to admit he was right about my not remembering him.
‘At a tea-party of Sillery’s. I should place it in the year 1924. I may be in error about the date. I am bad at dates. They are so meaningless.’